What is your definition of Energy Independence

Not quite, he doesn't acknowledge any "known unknowns". He also doesn't know anything about intellectual humility, how to be classy or admit it when he's wrong. Originally Posted by lustylad

Of course I acknowledge known unknowns...that is why i do not comment on things I haven't researched. Like this moronic energy independence.

Class and humility in this shithole consists of a big ole GFY.

I admit when I'm wrong...when I'm wrong.

But unlike Wacko....you do not see me making claims that the price of gasoline tracks the price of oil... except when we are energy independent!

What a crock of horseshit

Originally Posted by LexusLover

Don't you have some antidotial bullshit from 1985 that you seem to think enhances your out of date persona?

Of course I acknowledge known unknowns...that is why i do not comment on things I haven't researched. Like this moronic energy independence. Originally Posted by WTF

Umm... so you started this entire thread and followed up with 44 rude, uppity, contradictory and condescending know-it-all comments on a topic you now admit you know nothing about?

After 44 posts, you're claiming you didn't comment?

Please stop. You're becoming the laughingstock of eccie!

i cant help it.....its the way i was made

i'm feeling sorry for wtf

it is, though, his own fault, for no matter how bad he is battered, he refuses to take a knee...

in one way, thats a commendable trait. but it doesn't come from courage or virtue, only obstinacy

one thing i notice, his fellow travelers haven't once come to his aid

Umm... so you started this entire thread and followed up with 44 rude, uppity, contradictory and condescending know-it-all comments on a topic you now admit you know nothing about?

After 44 posts, you're claiming you didn't comment?

Please stop. You're becoming the laughingstock of eccie! Originally Posted by lustylad

Shouldn't you be looking for the optimum tax rate?

Or better yet the part of the Laffer Curve where it states that tax cuts always provide more tax revenue.

You've been almost smart enough not to expose wtf you think energy independence actually means to you....except for the silly af post. Tell me how energy independence helped us in 2020?

Originally Posted by lustylad View Post
But it will help us to withstand "supply shocks" elsewhere in the world. And it obviously increases our leverage in situations where a major energy producer like Russia is misbehaving

Let me leave this egg here. Originally Posted by Precious_b

Apologies to WTF, LustyLad and LexusLover for not replying to your posts. The Wifi where I'm at sucks so it's a pain in the ass to post.

However, Precious' link demands a response. It's just plain wrong. For example, the writer says "only a couple of dozen rigs were pulled out of yards and put to work" since the price of oil went back above $62 a barrel. In reality, the price of the benchmark WTI crude rose above $62/barrel on 2/24/21. Since then the number of Permian Basin operating rigs actually rose from 202 to 301. That's about 50%, and more than Texas Monthly's "couple of dozen." And it happened because the price of oil increased, not because of Joe Biden's enlightened policies.

Texas Monthly's first profile Firebird Energy, is a nobody in the oil patch.

The second company profiled, Pioneer Energy, which has the most rigs running, is indeed not intending to ramp up drilling and production as fast as it did before 2020. Which is a good thing. Pioneer IMO has a jaded history stretching back years. They overpromised by assuming their wells would decline at unreasonably low rates, lower than justified by actual well histories. Their capex exceeded their cash flow year after year. They'd grow production and reserves, and then an oil price crash would come along, and they'd take massive writeoffs that would more than exceed their total income during the good years. I haven't looked at them in years, but can tell you a couple of decades ago they were not efficient operators. So yeah, maybe Wall Street should cut them off. Given their history they should be growing through cash flow, not borrowing money or selling equity.

To be fair, two other prolific, publicly traded companies in Permian Basin unconventional plays, Diamondback and EOG, aren't planning on growing production a lot in 2022 either.

Now let's look at who is increasing production. Brief mention is made in the article of two private companies, who don't have to answer to Wall Street or private equity, which are drilling wells as fast as they can. One, Mewbourne, is controlled by a family and the second, Endeavor, by a very shrewd and successful oilman.

The writer just mentions the three largest companies in the Basin in passing, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips. ChevronTexaco probably has the biggest position of any company in the Permian, except maybe Occidental, which historically has concentrated on conventional plays and enhanced oil recovery instead of shale.

Most ChevronTexaco's acreage is old minerals acquired by Texaco. They don't have to constantly drill wells to hold leases like their competitors, so they've been slow developing acreage. They're starting to wake up though, and I read somewhere that they're expecting to increase capital spending in the basin something like 10% this year. I'd imagine their returns on their Permian assets exceed any other significant opportunities they'd have. The company's not nimble, but once they get going watch out.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips however are going to be blowing and going this year. ExxonMobil largely abandoned the Permian Basin, then re-entered by buying XTO. More recently they acquired drilling rights from Endeavor and bought out the Bass Brothers. ConocoPhillips bought out Concho and Shell recently. I expect both to up drilling by over 25% in 2022.

The thing is that it's very profitable to drill right now. Ridiculously profitable. An outfit called BTU Analytics estimates breakeven prices for the two sub-basins of the Permian, the Midland Basin and the Delaware Basin. What they define as "breakeven" though actually assumes the wells make a 10% rate of return.

Their estimate of breakeven price for the Delaware Basin is $33.21/barrel. The breakeven for the Midland Basin is $46.37.

At prices above $100 a barrel, people who are drilling wells in the Permian are making money hand over foot. If they expect prices to remain high, or even more than, say, $65 a barrel, they will drill more than they were.

Now as WTF correctly says, world markets set the price, not exclusively the USA. If prices stay high, the same thing will be happening in other basins in other parts of the world. It will take time, it won't occur in a matter of months, but worldwide production capacity will increase significantly, and at some point will exceed demand by a good bit. And the price of oil will go down. As one sage observer said, the cure for high prices is high prices.

Now if, say, Russia, Venezuela and Iran are all shut out of the market, or if OPEC decides to clamp down on production, everything I wrote is out the window. That could happen. If it does I pray that we'll be "energy independent", however you define that term, in the oil patch, for reasons that LustyLad has described more articulately than I can.

One final point. There's no shortage of rigs in the Permian Basin. There is a shortage of manpower and certain equipment and supplies, like frack sand. That's going to have a bigger effect in the short term on production growth than a lack of willingness on the part of Wall Street and private equity to make judicious bets on the oil price. But in the medium to long term, that will resolve itself.

This was your contribution to the definition


For this so called energy independence....we'd have to nationalize our energy sector. And probably pass a bunch of laws prohibiting the export or importing to and from foreign countries.

Is that what you want?

Originally Posted by WTF

bullshit. now you are just wanking yourself and trying for a reach around at the same time.

we had energy independence as a net exporter without any of that crap, nationalizing the energy sector or a bunch of stupid laws restricting imports and exports.


where do you get this crap from?

bullshit. now you are just wanking yourself and trying for a reach around at the same time.

we had energy independence as a net exporter without any of that crap, nationalizing the energy sector or a bunch of stupid laws restricting imports and exports.


where do you get this crap from? Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

We had what you call energy independence.....wtf did it get us?


If it was so good....how come it stopped?

How come we quit pumping oil BEFORE Biden entered office?

Is it because Trump shut everything down?

How is that Bidens fault?

.

Now as WTF correctly says, world markets set the price, not exclusively the USA. If prices stay high, the same thing will be happening in other basins in other parts of the world. It will take time, it won't occur in a matter of months, but worldwide production capacity will increase significantly, and at some point will exceed demand by a good bit. And the price of oil will go down. As one sage observer said, the cure for high prices is high prices.

Now if, say, Russia, Venezuela and Iran are all shut out of the market, or if OPEC decides to clamp down on production, everything I wrote is out the window. That could happen. If it does I pray that we'll be "energy independent", however you define that term, in the oil patch, for reasons that LustyLad has described more articulately than I can. Originally Posted by Tiny

Pray do tell how lustylad explained any kind of fix to Now if, say, Russia, Venezuela and Iran are all shut out of the market, or if OPEC decides to clamp down on production,

He didn't. Oil would be 300-500 dollars a barrel. I'd be fucking rich. I'd still be able to afford 10 dollar gasoline.

The market is deciding in this country who drills....our companies have to compete with those other nations you were bragging about earlier....the Dutch, Saudi's and Arab Emirates.

As a side....how long have we tried to decapitate the heads of Iran and Venezuela with our oil bans? Think about that. What makes any of you think this will work on the Russians....hell we could not even topple NK

We had what you call energy independence.....wtf did it get us?


If it was so good....how come it stopped?

How come we quit pumping oil BEFORE Biden entered office?

Is it because Trump shut everything down?

How is that Bidens fault? Originally Posted by WTF

you keep saying such stupid shit. Trump didn't shutdown anything. a net exporter doesn't call Saudi Arabia begging for oil. and they didn't take Biden's call.

Biden's policies are the cause of this.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp


Team Biden is 'gaslighting' on gas prices with #PutinPriceHike


Opinion by Joe concha, Opinion Contributor - Yesterday 7:00 AM

No more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry! No more drilling on federal lands! No more drilling, including offshore! No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period. [It] ends. Number one!"

That was candidate Joe Biden declaring war on American energy independence during a CNN primary debate in March 2020. He promised no new fracking too.


Now here's President Biden earlier this week: "Loosening environmental regulations won't lower prices. But transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles, powered by clean energy, will mean that no one will have to worry about gas prices. It will mean tyrants like Putin won't be able to use fossil fuels as a weapon."


Timing is everything, especially in politics - and this may be the most disconnected, tone-deaf message to come out of any White House in some time.


As you may have seen and felt while filling up your car at the pump, gas prices are at their most expensive point in history, at $4.17 or more per gallon. On former President Trump's last day in the White House, gas cost $2.38 a gallon.


But if you listen to Biden, Vice President Harris, their staffs and their cheerleaders on TV, this is totally the perfect time to ditch your gas guzzler and buy an electric vehicle.


"We are all in the midst of a turning point. We have the technologies to transition to a zero-emission fleet," Harris said on March 7 amid soaring gas prices and inflation. "We can address the climate crisis and grow our economy at the same time."


"Our view is that the rise in gas prices over the long term makes an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options so we are not relying on the fluctuations and OPEC [Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] and their willingness to put more supply and meet the demand in the market," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters a few weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine.


"Today, the average gas price in America hit an all-time record high of over $4 per gallon," CBS "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert said. "OK, that stings, but a clear conscience is worth a buck or two. I'm willing to pay. I'm willing to pay $4 a gallon. Hell, I'll pay $15 a gallon because I drive a Tesla."


Hilarious! And that Tesla he drives? That's probably out of the price range for much of his audience watching at home.


"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before," former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told corporate executives at a Wall Street Journal conference during the 2008 financial crisis. And that's what Team Biden is attempting to do here: somehow convince the American public, already fatigued, frustrated and beaten down by everything from COVID-19 to crime to rising inflation, that we need to embrace the Green New Deal and all the wonderful things that come with it, regardless of conditions felt by the lower and middle classes.


But here's the best part, if unintentional comedy is your thing: Team Biden and its allies in the media are attempting to portray inflation, especially higher gas prices, as being just recently thrust upon Americans by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.


"For months Putin has been saber-rattling, and for months gas prices have been going up - up 75 cents since he began his military buildup," White House communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted earlier this week. "This is the #PutinPriceHike in action, and [Biden] is going to use every tool at his disposal to shield Americans from pain at the pump."


And here's Psaki on March 8: "Americans are paying a higher price at the pump because of the actions of President Putin."


The facts, however, show that gas prices have been rising since November 2020, more than 14 months before Putin's "saber-rattling."


Funny how up until a few weeks ago the White House never made any connection between Putin and domestic gas prices, instead blaming everything from OPEC to oil companies here at home.


But traditional broadcast media outlets got the memo and followed it to the letter.


"The U.S. economy has been hit with increased gas prices, inflation, and supply-chain issues due to the Ukraine crisis," was the Twitter headline from CBS News.


"'Putin's price hike' will be borne by American consumers," said ABC News.


"The new message, which has been tested in Democratic polling, is threefold: empathize with the economic strain high fuel prices are putting on Americans, which Biden already has been doing; send a strong warning to oil and gas companies that might seek to exploit the crisis; and blame Putin," reported NBC News, quoting an unnamed White House official.


No mention in this threefold, poll-tested approach about turning to the likes of oil-producing nations Venezuela, Iran or Saudi Arabia instead of unleashing American energy independence.


Restarting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which the president suspended not long after taking office, as he promised to do during the campaign, would be a good start. Uncanceling the Keystone XL pipeline would be another good step for the long term. And reducing restrictions on fracking would be welcomed by everyone but the far left, which lives in the utopian post-Green New Deal world that the administration is still pushing as you read this.


On Tuesday, Biden was asked what Americans can expect on gas prices. "They're going to go up," he said. When asked about solutions, he offered this shoulder-shrug response: "Can't do much right now. Russia is responsible."


This is an administration that is especially accomplished at pointing fingers.


So, inflation at a 40-year high? Blame Putin - or blame COVID-19.


"Today's inflation report is a reminder that Americans' budgets are being stretched by price increases and families are starting to feel the impacts of Putin's price hike," Biden said Thursday after the Labor Department reported that prices rose 0.8 percent in February and 8.4 percent over the last three months.


Millions of migrants illegally crossing the U.S. southern border? Blame Trump.


Murders at a 25-year high? Simply say Republicans are the ones who back defunding the police.


Everything is everyone else's fault, and this administration and president are just victims of circumstances beyond their control.


Gallup shows that nearly 8 in 10 Americans (78 percent) are dissatisfied with the country's direction. The president is at historically low approval ratings.


Biden promised on Election Day that he would take responsibility for any mistakes, declaring, "I promise you. I'm gonna take responsibility. When I make a mistake, I'll admit it."


Instead, passing the buck has become Biden's norm. And if history is any indication, his party will pay dearly for it in November 2022.

Apologies to WTF, LustyLad and LexusLover for not replying to your posts. The Wifi where I'm at sucks so it's a pain in the ass to post.

However, Precious' link demands a response. ...
Originally Posted by Tiny

I never thought such a respect 'zine that has the Bum Steer Award would be caught in the Left lane.

Had to check that out. But they're up there on factual content according to the link. Not saying Tiny post is not true.

One final point. There's no shortage of rigs in the Permian Basin. There is a shortage of manpower and certain equipment and supplies, like frack sand. That's going to have a bigger effect in the short term on production growth than a lack of willingness on the part of Wall Street and private equity to make judicious bets on the oil price. But in the medium to long term, that will resolve itself. Originally Posted by Tiny

Thanks, Tiny. You've rescued this thread from being a complete waste of time. Your posts are always informative. You actually try to educate people with facts and numbers, instead of mocking everyone who believes in apple pie, motherhood and energy independence as "dumb fucks".

$100 Oil Is Back! Why Isn’t Texas Drilling?

Russia’s war on Ukraine has made it practically patriotic to pump oil, but the Permian hasn’t ramped up production. Don’t blame Washington. Blame Wall Street.
By Russell Gold
March 11, 2022

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-po...-not-drilling/

Someone needs to put the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band on a bus, drive it to Midland, and have it march through the main dining room of the Petroleum Club to wake everybody up. Oil prices have reached heights unseen since 2014. Not only that, but pumping crude has been transformed in the public eye, practically overnight, from a climate scourge to an act of patriotism in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We have the ability, and frankly an obligation, to support our global allies to help fuel democracy and energy security,” Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, told me this week.

Yet the Texas oil business slumbers. After President Biden, on Tuesday, announced a ban on importing Russian oil into the U.S., prices topped $123 a barrel, before falling back to $107 as of this morning. And the industry’s response? The number of drilling rigs grinding into the ground in search of hydrocarbons in both West Texas and South Texas has declined by a couple.

This isn’t to say that Texas’s oil output won’t rise in the coming months, especially if the oil and gas crisis unleashed by the war in Ukraine intensifies and the industry’s role as a geopolitical asset grows. We just shouldn’t be surprised by the subdued response. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature of the new energy economy.

For the past few years, the oil industry in Texas has been browbeaten by investors. Wall Street got fed up. No longer did it support piling on debt and outspending cash flow to prioritize double-digit annual increases in production whenever oil prices were high. Investors had learned time and again that an inevitable drop would burn up shareholder value. The new mantras for oil companies are “be sustainable” and “live within your means.” If they make extra money because oil prices are high, give it back to investors.

Look at what happened as oil prices rose steadily from last summer’s dog days, when $62 bought a barrel, to $75 as we rang in 2022, and on up to $88 by February. Then too the reaction in the Texas oil patch was muted. Only a couple of dozen rigs were pulled out of yards and put to work. Many Americans may want the industry to get new rigs up and drilling right now in the name of global security, but you can’t ask the business to change back that quickly. (Well, you can ask, but you won’t like the answer.)


I recently asked Travis F. Thompson about all of this. He’s the 42-year-old chief executive of FireBird Energy, a Fort Worth company active in the Permian Basin. FireBird has been running two rigs for months and is considering adding a third soon, but only because it bought some acreage from Chevron, not because of surging prices. Thompson told me FireBird’s investors—including Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and RedBird Capital Partners in Dallas—don’t want it chasing $100 oil. Instead, they want FireBird to reward its investors, yes, but also to meet its environmental goals. Instead of putting more money into drilling, the company has installed infrastructure to recycle its water and a solar project to reduce its carbon footprint. It’s “focused on creating cash flow and sustainable businesses,” Thompson said. “As prices continue to rise, there will be increased pressure to ramp up activity. I don’t think you see companies move too far away from their capital disciplined approach.”

It’s worth listening to him because most of the rigs drilling in the United States, as well as in Texas, belong to private companies such as RedBird. That’s an unprecedented development. According to data compiled by Enverus, an Austin-based energy analytics company, publicly traded Pioneer Natural Resources, based in Irving, has the most rigs running in the Permian Basin, but two privately held companies are close behind: Tyler-based Mewbourne Oil and Midland-based Endeavor Energy—well ahead of industry giants ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Chevron.

Biden’s ban on Russian oil effectively removed 670,000 barrels a day from U.S. markets, about 7.9 percent of the nation’s imports of crude oil and petroleum products. It’s not clear if the small private companies could make up those missing barrels, even if they suddenly caught a case of patriotic fever. Those kind of numbers need to come from the big public companies.

But don’t expect the Pioneers and other public companies to step on the gas either. Pioneer, which is wholly focused on the Permian Basin, is a standout example of the new reality. In the final three months of 2021, as prices climbed, it gave $1.1 billion back to its investors in the form of dividends. Four years ago, it distributed just $55 million in dividends—for the entire year.

Scott Sheffield, Pioneer’s longtime chief executive, says the company isn’t going back to the old business model anytime soon. Asked about plans to ramp up output last month, he was adamant: “At one-hundred-dollar oil, one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar oil, we’re not going to change our growth rate.” In other words, come what may, they’re sticking to their knitting.


Pioneer is not alone. Most of the big publicly traded companies are in a similar boat. They have been chastised by investors for squandering profits and have promised to genuflect at the altar of capital discipline. At least for now, they have the unflinching fervor of converts. And, looking at the industry’s history, it’s easy to understand why investors don’t care to get burned again. Prices are high now, but what happens if investment flows into the Texas oil patch and within a few months new wells begin producing—just in time to join a tidal wave of new crude from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela that sends prices crashing.

A few days ago, Wayne Christian, chairman of the state’s oil-regulating Railroad Commission, sent a letter to President Biden. “America must unleash our hardworking oil and natural gas producers,” he said. He cited actions he wanted the federal government to take: approving the Keystone XL pipeline and renewing onshore and offshore leasing of public lands. That sounds good and will score political points. But the bottleneck isn’t in Washington, D.C. It’s on Wall Street. Investors bludgeoned oil CEOs into submission long before prices climbed into triple digits. Originally Posted by WTF

what egg? you didn't write this you condescending SOB.